Journalists call for access to Gaza in open letter _ BBC News

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00:00Now, a group of more than 50 broadcast journalists have sent an open letter to the embassies

00:05of Israel and Egypt calling for free and unfettered access to Gaza for foreign media.

00:11The letter sent by correspondents and presenters from the main broadcasting outlets based in

00:16the UK also appeals for better protection for journalists already reporting in the territory.

00:2155 journalists have signed the letter, including Sky News' Alex Crawford, the BBC's Jeremy

00:27Bowen, Ola Guerin and Fergal Keane, as well as CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

00:32Well, for more on this, I'm joined now by Alex Crawford, who joins us from Erbil in Iraq.

00:39She is, of course, Sky News' special correspondent and, as we've just been saying, is among the

00:44signatories of the letter.

00:45Thank you very much for joining us, especially while you're on deployment, Alex.

00:49Just tell us what the rationale was behind this letter to begin with.

00:53Well, the main thinking is that we're all terribly frustrated and feel we're not really

00:58doing ourselves justice.

01:02We're not doing the story justice.

01:04And people aren't hearing particular information because foreign journalists aren't on the ground.

01:11And this is despite multiple attempts to try to get access into Gaza since October the 7th.

01:18From October the 7th onwards, there have been groups of people, teams of people, media organisations

01:24from all over the world trying to get access into Gaza, and we haven't been able to.

01:29And that definitely compromises what is probably one of the most important developing events

01:35in, certainly in the region, for many, many decades, possibly in the world, and will have

01:41ramifications for many years to come.

01:43Alex, you've travelled the world with your reporting and you're in Iraq at the moment.

01:48How unusual is it in your experience and through your career to have been unable to access an

01:55area, particularly one that is the centre of a major story?

02:00I think it's not unusual that some governments and some regimes will try to keep you out.

02:07And that presents definitely a challenge for journalists to try and report accurately inside.

02:14But we, in the past, and even now, we're talking about governments or authorities or regimes

02:21that do not describe themselves as democracies, which Israel does describe itself as.

02:28Israel is proud of boasting that it is a liberal democracy with an open media.

02:35And yet it is deliberately blocking journalists from all over the world from getting into Gaza.

02:42That is the key difference.

02:43I mean, in the past, journalists like myself have had to use boats to get into Myanmar,

02:49have had to use all sorts of tactics to try to get inside closed-off areas.

02:57And we've managed it.

02:58This one is monumentally difficult because it is an extremely small area that we're talking about.

03:05There are only two border points.

03:07And it is really, really very massively locked down by Israel and also by Egypt.

03:15And seriously, most governments around the world should be worried about that.

03:19And I was just reading, because you wrote a blog, didn't you, for the Sky News website,

03:23that you said that last month the Foreign Press Association attempted to persuade the Israeli High Court

03:29to allow journalists in, but it was refused for security concerns.

03:35Tell us more about what they said to you after that ruling then.

03:39Well, it was the Supreme Court of Israel, and it was brought by the Foreign Press Association.

03:45As I said, there have been multiple attempts by not only the big media organisations around the world,

03:50but also individuals, individual journalists, BBC Sky, ITN, ITV, all signed, Channel 4,

03:57all signed a letter in November as well, none of which have had any impact or made a jot of difference.

04:02The Supreme Court said that they wouldn't lift the restrictions imposed by the IDF.

04:11And the IDF argued that this was because journalists could be put at risk in wartime

04:17and they could endanger soldiers by reporting on troop positions

04:21and that it's too dangerous for Israeli personnel to be present at the border

04:26to facilitate press entry into Gaza.

04:29Well, of course, all those arguments could be posed in any war, and sometimes they are.

04:38And usually they're by countries or regimes or authorities who definitely do not want journalists in.

04:45And I would argue, along with the more than 50 other journalists,

04:50and they are the top, most well-known journalists in Britain, Jeremy Bowen,

04:55a number of presenters like Rita Chakraborty, Clive Myrie, Michelle Hussain,

05:00as well as Tom Bradby on ITN, all the key war correspondents on ITN,

05:06Emma Murphy, Johnny Irvine, Channel 4, Lindsay's Hilson, Matt Fry, Krishnan Gurumurthy.

05:11There are a list of the top, most senior journalists who've been respected

05:16and proved their credentials the world over for many years,

05:20who've all become very worried about the lack of access into Gaza

05:24and what that means on telling an unfolding event and telling it accurately.

05:31There are some very serious allegations against Israel,

05:34allegations of war crimes, allegations of genocide,

05:37which was presented before the ICJ, the International Court of Justness.

05:42Now, until we get proper, independent, impartial, foreign journalists on the ground there,

05:49it's going to be very difficult to disprove or prove those allegations.

05:54So we would argue it's in Israel's interest as well to allow the free movement of independent journalists.

06:01And of course, the argument is that there are Palestinian journalists in there.

06:04That's true. But in every big story, anywhere, even if you're covering the G8 summit or the Olympics

06:12or party conferences in Britain, you would send a whole group of journalists to rotate through,

06:18to refresh, to re-energise, to recharge.

06:21Those Palestinian journalists inside, many of whom have lost their homes,

06:26are scrabbling on a day-to-day basis to get food and water, to just stay alive,

06:31need refreshing and we need more input from outside.

06:35Indeed, I wanted to ask you that before we end this interview,

06:39because yesterday, about 24 hours ago, in fact, Rushdie Abu-Aloof was sitting next to me here in the studio,

06:45sharing his, you know, challenges, because it's a personal tragedy,

06:49but he wanted to stay as long as he could to bring that story to us from the ground.

06:54But let's not forget the huge risks that the journalists who remain in Gaza currently face.

07:00There are a high, there is an extremely high and very worrying attrition rate of journalists inside Gaza.

07:06And that is also something that needs investigating, with many, many claims and a large amount of evidence

07:13suggesting that they have been targeted specifically and their families because they're journalists.

07:18Now, until we get access into Gaza, we also cannot prove or disprove those.

07:23And those suspicions will continue.

07:25And it's extremely worrying for just independent, accurate information.

07:31If journalists inside are being accused of not only being biased or partisan or being coerced by Hamas,

07:39at the same time as there are also accusations that they're being targeted by the Israeli military,

07:44there needs to be immediate sort of independent access to an unfettered access to foreign journalists

07:54to either put these allegations to bed or prove them.

07:58Alex Crawford, we admire you hugely here at the BBC.

08:01Thank you very much for the work you do.

08:03And thanks for joining us.

08:07Around the world and across the UK, this is BBC News.

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